Prisons: Brown drops defiance, but what about compliance?

Gov. Jerry Brown has apparently decided to stop thumbing his nose at the federal court that oversees health care and population levels in California’s prisons, a court that has threatened to hold him in contempt if he doesn’t obey its orders. But he’s apparently holding onto his unorthodox view of the law that the court will apply.

Last week the three-judge court reaffirmed its mandate that the state reduce the inmate population to 109,500, or 137.5 percent of designed capacity, by the end of this year. The court first issued its order in 2009 after finding that overcrowding was the primary cause of the dreadful quality of health care in the prisons. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision in 2011, and despite Brown’s proclamation in January that the medical system is now a model for the nation and there’s no need for further population reductions, the panel ruled April 11 that the prisons are still overcrowded and health care still violates constitutional standards.

Brown was on his China tour when the ruling came out, and his first response was almost dismissive.

“I’m sure the people in L.A. would like to see more prisoners out on the streets,” he said, according to one published report. “See, we have two problems here: some are saying there are too many people being let loose, and then we have the judges saying, not enough, we need another 10,000 out there.”

That won’t happen, the governor told reporters, “until we appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

A day later, Brown said he’d spoken with the state’s lawyers, who reminded him that the three-judge panel had given the state three weeks to present a plan to reduce the inmate population by 10,000, and that the Supreme Court, which has ruled against the state once before in the case, might not issue a stay. “We’ve got to come up with a plan,” he acknowledged.

Still, Brown insisted California’s prisons have “among the best health care in America and probably in the world.” Although court-appointed monitors who inspected the prisons have concluded otherwise, Brown said he’ll make his own inspection tour shortly.

“But I have to tell you the constitutional standard is deliberate indifference,” he said, referring to the standards courts have set for inmates who sue for violations of their rights. “And as far as I know there is no one deliberately indifferent to the health needs of California prisoners, and if I find such a person, he will be fired on the spot.”

Based on what the courts have ruled so far, he might try looking in the mirror.

The prisoners who filed suit over their mental health treatment in 1991, and over their medical care in 2001, weren’t accusing individual doctors, nurses or guards of being deliberately indifferent to their rights. They were accusing the state government and its top officials, including the governor — the lead defendant in the case — and his corrections director. Federal judges have proceeded to find that California was severely lacking in medical staff and facilities and in the quality of care it provided in prisons that were jammed to nearly twice their designed capacity.

When the three-judge court ordered the state to reduce the inmate population by about 34,000, Brown responded with realignment, which lowered the population by 24,000 by sentencing low-level felons to county jail instead of prison. He then said he’d done enough, and brushed off the court’s suggestions to reduce sentences for some nonviolent crimes, increase paroles of low-risk offenders and give inmates more time off their sentences for good behavior.

Brown and other state officials have engaged in openly contemptuous conduct, the court said in last week’s ruling, by “repeatedly ignoring both this court’s order and at least three explicit admonitions to take all steps necessary to comply with that order.” All they have submitted so far, the judges said, is “a plan for non-compliance.” And if they don’t start complying, starting with the population-reduction plan due by the start of next month, “they will without further delay be subject to findings of contempt, individually and collectively.”

People can be thrown in jail for contempt, though judges usually impose fines instead when government officials are involved. In any event, the court has gotten Brown’s attention, and will be keeping a close eye on his response. We in the press corps will do so as well.